Growth

Ryan and I are obsessed with looking at homes on zillow.com, in Omaha in particular.  

Can you tell where everyone is moving these days and where we'll probably end up?

Alaska Reaction take 2

There is no update on where Ryan and I will be going, but we do know that we're not the only ones in this situation.  Apparently it happens every year that 1-2 sites fall through and this year there are four students in Ryan's position.  

After Ryan and I's first few freak out hours, we're oddly calm.  I'm never calm about this kind of thing, which kind of makes me want to freak out? Weird, right?  I'm never good with not knowing the future but I just feel like something will work out and it will be where Ryan and I belong.  

To be continued... (when things finally get finalized).

Speechless

We're not going to Alaska.

That's all I know.

Ryan got this email:

Ryan:

I am writing to inform you that Infinity Rehab is no longer able to offer the clinical internship for PT 801 at its Anchorage, AK location.  Thus I need to schedule a time to meet with you to discuss your preferences for another assignment in an inpatient setting.  It is not urgent for us to meet at once so I will suggest that we plan to meet during the week of February 13^th. 

 Don’t stress about this…it will all work out!  Dr. O

Not urgent? Don't stress?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I was planning on leaving my job for 3 months, I need to know if that's still the plan! AH, I'm SOOO bummed.  I wanted best friend time.  I wanted me and my little family in Alaska.

I wanted to blog about happy things in our life but this is apparently our most recent news.

 LAME SAUCE. 

Why English Teachers Die Young

I know I don't normally post stuff like this on my blog, but I was cracking up alone at my desk today reading through these.  (I found them on a file at work so it's a totally acceptable use of my time). ENJOY!

 WHY ENGLISH TEACHERS DIE YOUNG

 Actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays.

Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room temperature Canadian beef.

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three inch tree.

The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge free ATM.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

From the attic came an unearthly howl.  The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p. m. instead of 7:30.

Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

John and Mary had never met.  They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

Curses

I think that last post cursed me.  I ended up not working out TWO days in a row. 

And I'm off of my food schedule.

Curses.  Let's hope nothing goes wrong this Friday the 13th.

Habits

That's Ryan and I's theme for our New Year's resolutions.  Well, that's the theme I gave mine at least, and half of mine are shared with him.  We were rocking it until today.  Today I don't want to do anything, I just want to lay in my bed (just like the Lazy Song).  We both just really need to work on making habits of the good things we should be doing everyday anyway like reading our scriptures, praying, and working out.  But we are inconsistent and are trying really hard so far to be better about these things.  Like I said, we dominated last week.

I bought Ryan P90X for Christmas because he wants us to work out together.  I feel more comfortable working out in the privacy of my home so that makes us both happy (except the incredible muscle soreness after the first few days).  Can you believe we did all six workouts last week? And we did two days this week and I left Ryan to do it alone today.  Like I said, I'm just not feeling it and I just want to sleep.

Another of my personal habits I'm working on is meal planning.  Now I know I've talked about some of my issues with food, and they still exist, I'm just trying to move past it.  I HATED planning meals.  I never knew what to cook!  Well, I found myself a good method that has worked for two weeks at least.  I took the advice of "The Food Nanny" and made a category for each day.  We have Comfort Foods, Mexican, Pasta, Meatless, Asian, Leftovers, and Pizza.  I made a list of the meals we make on a regular basis and then divided them into these categories.  Now on Sundays all I have to do is pick one meal from each category for the week.  It makes my life SOOO much easier.  I don't hate my wifely responsibility anymore.  Now that I have a plan it makes our evenings go so much smoother, too.  We work out right away when I get home and then have the food cooking while we shower.  I'm sure many of you already have all this down to an art, but let me have my excitement.  I'm awfully proud of my excitement.  In fact, I even have homemade bread baking as we speak.

Here's to 10 days of keeping New Year's Resolutions!

Oh yeah, that picture reminds me that we have probably 20 bottles of sparkling cider.  It went on sale for $1 and Ryan couldn't resist.  Classy, aren't we?

Christmas

I LOVED Christmas this year.  I cannot even express how wonderful it was to spend it with just our little family +1 (Mia, the Golden Retriever).   We spent Christmas Even with my friend Necia and her family and another man and his daughter from church.  There was such a sweet spirit as the four little girls played together and as the adults chatted.  It was so fun to get to experience some of the excitement of Santa again.  Ryan even got to play the part of the reindeer after the girls went to bed and "eat" the "magical reindeer food" that was carefully placed in the lawn for them to eat.  The original meal was planned from only 4-6 but we ended up staying until 10pm just laughing as Ryan and Barry (Nec's husband) shared story after story.

This picture will NOT go the right direction and it's driving me crazy. But I wanted to post it! I gave these girls this little Christmas tree and Necia said that it was one of the best gifts they've ever received.  I bought that tree when I was maybe 12? Maybe older, I don't remember. But each year I would go to Hobby Lobby and buy new mini decorations to add to my collection.  They LOVED it.  I love it, and I'm so glad it has gone to a good home and to someone who will appreciate it more than me.

After we left on Christmas Eve we went and saw a house in town that has their lights coordinated to music.  This is the first tradition Ryan and I have made together since being together. Hooray for tradition!  Ryan's family always opened all their presents on Christmas Eve and while we did not, I gave in and we opened a few.  We'll probably make this a tradition, too because Ryan insists.

Cinnamon rolls seem to be a common tradition for Christmas and I wanted to make them on Christmas morning and found an overnight recipe to do most of the work at night. BUT, I didn't realize they needed to rise once at night so that recipe was thrown out the door and I was a little tired and frustrated. Ryan could sense this and was a CHAMP.  The dogs must have known it was Christmas morning because they were up at 3:00 a.m. and would NOT settle down and go back to bed.  My sweet Ryan got up with them and took Mia out to the bathroom FIVE TIMES.  The stubborn thing kept telling him she needed to go but would not.  Despite his frustration, to make my life easier, he began making my cinnamon rolls so I wouldn't have to wake up early to get them to rise in time to eat.  He had my computer open and was googling things like how to scald milk (I would have done the same thing!).  At about 6:00 a.m. I finally woke up to see what he was up to and to have him come back to bed. It was perfect timing because he was frustrated and needed my reassurance that it was time to leave the dough to rise and go sleep for a few hours.  It could not have worked out more perfectly.  We both slept a few more hours, then I let him keep snoozing while I finished the cinnamon rolls.

Church wasn't until 1:00pm so we had the whole morning to open presents and just enjoy the day.  Opening presents was more fun than I've had in awhile because we had no idea what the other one bought for us!  Ryan's favorite gift was the Husker's Rex Burkhead (#22) jersey and I LOVE the world map he got me.  I wanted a map to pin places we've been and want to go.  Well, he found even better - a scratch off map!  The countries are that copper scratch-off stuff you find on lottery tickets, etc.  He then mounted it on a cork board so we can pin places AND he printed of pictures of where we've already been together. LOVE HIM.  He was so nervous for my gifts, but he passed with flying colors.

I don't know if any of you actually read all of that, but it doesn't even begin to explain how good of a day we had together.  We finished it off by making Cafe Rio pork salads which turned out GREAT (except our homemade tortillas need some improvement).  I sense a new Christmas tradition!